Bp. of Tella (d-Mawzlat) 519–21. Born 482 in Kallinikos in the province
Osrhoene, he received a good education and was fluent in both Syriac and
Greek. In 507 he joined the monastic community of Mar Zakkay in Kallinikos
and was ordained (among others by Yaʿqub of Serugh) bp. of Tella in (Nov.–Dec.?) 519. As Miaphysite bp. he was
exiled in 521/2, and lived in hiding around Mardin and in
Persia. In exile he ordained thousands of deacons and priests, and thereby
established a Miaphysite church hierarchy which became the foundation of the
Syr. Orth. Church. In 532/3 he attended a discussion of faith with
Chalcedonian bishops in Constantinople. For building an underground church,
he was persecuted after 536, caught in the mountains around Shighar in
Persia in early Feb. 537 and brought to Antioch where he
died 6 Febr. 538.

He is remembered in two Lives, one by Eliya (CSCO 7–8,
31–95 [23–60]) and one by Yuḥanon of Ephesus (PO 18, 513–26). His own works show him as a reform bp.
involved in the ecclesiastical and christological controversies of his days
and include Canons for priests and deacons, questions and answers
(especially concerning the Eucharist), a commentary on the Trisagion, and a
profession of faith.

Sources

V. Menze, ‘The Regula ad Diaconos:
John of Tella, his Eucharistic Ecclesiology and the Establishment of an
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy in Exile’, OC
90
(2006), 44–90. (Syr. with ET; incl. further references)

V. Menze and K. Akalın, John of
Tella’s Profession of Faith. The legacy of a
sixth-century Syrian Orthodox bishop (Texts from Christian
Late Antiquity 25; 2009). (Syr. with ET)